Introductions Can Be Murder
by Mr Sinister
Summary: Archangel gets ready to entertain some guests at the mansion... but he hasn't told Psylocke they're coming yet. Oops.


**_Introductions Can Be Murder_**

   _Okay, __Warren__… better get this over with…_

   When I reach the door of Betsy's and my bedroom, I wander over to where Betsy is playing gently with Tom, juggling little squashy balls filled with dried beans from hand to hand. She coos at our son encouragingly from time to time, tickling him under his chubby arms through the soft babygro he has on. Tom squeals with laughter whenever she does that, and flexes his hands in appreciation. His smile, as usual, strikes me as one of the best things I've got in my life today, and reminds me that being a new dad isn't all about burping your kid after a feed or trying to sing them back to sleep at three in the morning. I walk slowly over to my wife and son, and lay a hand tentatively on Betsy's shoulder. "Hi, honey," I murmur lovingly in her ear. "I have to tell you something, Betsy."

   Betsy nods without looking at me, before she brings Tom to her chest and stands slowly rocking our son gently back and forth to quiet his disgruntled whimpers. "Yes, I can feel something's bothering you," she says. "Come on then, Warren – out with it."

   "We have a couple of guests arriving at the mansion for a day or so in the near future," I say, almost in one breath. "I met them the other day – you remember, when I took Tom out by myself?"

   "I see," Betsy says, looking contemplative (I suspect she'd have folded her arms if she weren't holding Tom, just to complete the picture). "Are they business associates of yours?"

   "Well… not exactly," I reply, feeling a purple blush creep up my cheeks. "They're two friends I made that day, who I'd like you to meet very much. Tonya was my waitress when I went to our favourite coffee house – you remember the one I mean – and Bobby is her son."

   "I'm sorry?" Betsy exclaims, looking more surprised than I expected she would. "You met her son? Why would you have met her son if she was working in a coffee house?"

   _Oh boy._ "Okay," I begin, a little apprehensively, "here's the four-one-one on what happened: she talked to me about Tom, and then she asked me if I would spend the day with her, and we had some burgers and donuts together. Then she asked me if I'd like to meet her family, and I said yes, so I got to meet her mother and her little boy out in Brooklyn. I asked Tonya if she'd like to visit the mansion and meet my family this week, as a thank you for the day we had – is that a problem?"

   Betsy lays Tom down on his blanket again, and then puts a fingertip to either side of the bridge of her nose. "You spent one afternoon with this woman and you're already inviting her into our home? Is that wise?"

   "Why not?" I say, almost defiantly. "I don't see why I shouldn't return the courtesy she showed me, do you?"

   "That's not what I'm objecting to, darling," Betsy replies, gesturing to the floor, as if to remind me of what lies underneath it. "Remember what we do. Is it wise to invite a possible security risk into our home without knowing more about her first? And would you want to put our children at risk because of that?"

   "No, of course not," I begin, "and that's why I asked Tonya to come here. She's no danger to anybody here – her mutant abilities are –"

   "She's a mutant?" Betsy interrupts, sounding a little worried now. "Is she an Alpha?"

   "Yeah, she's a mutant, but her powers, like I was _saying_," and I can feel irritation beginning to creep into my voice now, much to my dismay, "aren't exactly on the scale of Magneto or the Professor. She can make globes of light from her hands, and that's about all. Tom loved them, by the way."

   "As I've said before," Betsy reminds me, "Tom isn't exactly the best judge of character in the world. For all you know, this Tonya woman could be a honey-trap set by Magneto, or Apocalypse, or whoever else wants to know how to destroy the X-Men from the inside out."

   "Why would they use us, then?" I move forwards to pick my son up and cradle him against me, stroking his downy blond hair with my uppermost hand and feeling the soft sensation of his tiny body against my chest easing my mood a little. "We're not exactly the most obvious choice for that kind of operation. If they were going to do that, they'd use Scott or Ororo– both of them have access and command codes that neither of us have, and probably will never have. Wouldn't it make more sense to try getting to the team through them instead?"

   Betsy raises an eyebrow. "You've read too many Tom Clancy novels, husband of mine – real espionage is almost never that obvious. Take it from one who knows."

   "So? Doesn't what I'm saying make even a little bit of sense?" I say. "Come on, honey; all I'm asking is that you give this woman the benefit of the doubt, just until you know her a little better. If she's not on the level, there are three other telepaths in this mansion besides you – she won't be able to hide stuff like that for long with four of you mind-reader types around, right?"

   "It's not always that simple," Betsy says, folding her arms. "During my time at STRIKE, I met counter-espionage agents who were totally mind-blind, but could keep a skilled telepath out of their minds through willpower and mental exercise alone. Alarm bells do start going off when people won't let you in, but if there's nothing else to go on… you can't really do a lot. Not until it's already too late, anyway."

   "It won't get to that point, Betsy," I reply solemnly, brushing Tom's back with one hand to ease his wriggling a little. "I promise."

   "Do you really?" Betsy sighs. "All right, Warren, I'll go along with this. But on your head be it." She pauses. "When is this Tonya person supposed to be arriving, anyway?"

   I gulp. "Um… in about an hour and a half?"

   If looks could kill…

*

   Tonya's aged car arrives at the gates of the mansion a little later than I'd expected it to, and coughs its way up the long driveway, passing the rows and rows of elegant pine trees that line the gravel path. The exhaust makes a couple of grunting growls as Tonya brings the car to a halt outside the mansion's front entrance, trying not to hit the football that has landed on the gravel just in the path of her front left tyre, and then she unhooks her seatbelt and does the same for her son. She retrieves the football from the surface of the drive and then throws it perfectly back to where it came from – the game of catch that Sam, Hank and Bobby had been playing, along with Ororo, Rogue, and Jenny. When Tonya has done so, she walks nonchalantly over to where Betsy and I are standing, her son clinging to her left hand almost compulsively. His big toe claws tap furrows in the driveway's surface as he walks, their anxious movements showing how nervous he is to be out of his own environment.

   Hopefully we can change that before the day is out, though. 

   "Hi, Warren," Tonya says cheerfully, waving to me with her free hand, before gesturing at the game of football she interrupted with her arrival. "Busy house you got here, huh?" She walks up to Betsy and me, and sticks her hand out for me to grasp, perhaps mindful of the fact that she shouldn't be too intimate in her greeting with my wife standing right in front of her. "Nice to see you again, man. And this must be Betsy, I guess?" When I nod, she grins, and focuses her gaze on Betsy, who has clasped Tom to her chest with both arms in order to keep him quiet. "Hi," she says, offering her hand to my wife. "Warren's told me all about you."

   "I wish I could say the same about you," Betsy says, shooting me an evil glare as she takes Tonya's greeting as quickly as she can (which involves handing our son to me, just so that she doesn't have to juggle him like a rubber ball), "but Warren didn't even think to tell me you were coming until about an hour and a half ago."

   Tonya bursts out laughing, and points at me like I've just been hit in the face with a cream pie. "Ooh… busted!" she chuckles. "I'd better introduce myself properly, then. Hi, I'm Tonya Anderson, coffee house waitress extraordinaire, and this is my son, Bobby. Say hi to Mrs Worthington, Bobby." Bobby looks up at Betsy without an ounce of shyness (apparently his nervousness was only momentary, caused by the disorientation of being in a new place) and smiles a wide, fanged grin, his needle-sharp canine teeth peeking over his bottom lip.

   "Hello, Mrs Worthington," he says, as politely as he can, before he extends a small hand in expectation that Betsy will take it. "Nice to meet you."

   "It's nice to meet you as well," Betsy says, kneeling and clasping his hand in hers. I can already feel her reluctance to get involved with this whole deal thawing slightly, so I send her a little telepathic nudge to tell her so. Betsy looks up at me with her eyebrows raised. _Don't think for an instant that this lets you off the hook, buster,_ she sends back with indignant defiance. _I haven't forgiven you just yet. "Would you two like to come in?" she exclaims aloud, before she gestures at the front door with a nod of her head. "I'm sure we can get better acquainted in the rec. room, don't you?" _

   "Sounds like a plan to me, honey," Tonya agrees. "We'll be safe from that football, I think."

   "I wouldn't count on it," I say. "If I've learned anything from living here, it's that you should never expect anything but the unexpected."

   Betsy seconds that statement as we make our way into the mansion, and we thread our way through the corridors that lie beyond the front door, past moose and deer heads mounted on the walls, tapestries hung from golden rails, and paintings that obviously cost thousands and thousands of dollars. Tonya comments that she probably couldn't afford the canvas they were painted on, and takes in everything else with a kind of hushed wonder that seems quite at odds with how I've seen her previously. Eventually, we come to the rec. room's doors, and Tonya says "Let me guess – you've got virtual reality machines in here, right?"

   "Close, but you're way off," I say. I open the door, and reveal the bar, pool table, juke box and television. "You want something to drink?" I nod towards Bobby. "I can get you a Diet Coke, if you like."

   Bobby nods enthusiastically, his scaly head bobbing up and down as if on a spring, and Tonya follows suit, saying "That'd be great, thanks." 

   "Well, you just sit down and I'll bring it right over." I motion towards the nearest sofa, and Betsy, Tonya and Bobby make their way over to it, arranging cushions and the accumulated junk that covers the seats in such a way that they can all sit down comfortably. Betsy folds a couple of _Life_ magazines shut and places them on the coffee table in front of her, clicking her tongue in irritation (I think Hank left them there on one of his few visits to this room – the last time was when we showed _Beauty And The Beast_ on movie night, I think. He and Trish just made out during the last half hour, though, so I guess he's not really to blame for leaving them there. When you're making out with a beautiful woman, you tend to forget the less important things – like higher brain function and the ability to concentrate on anything but the person you're locking lips with. And I should know; Betsy's made me forget plenty of things since we started seeing each other…). Slipping behind the bar, I find the Coke tap and fill two glasses to the brim with the dark, fizzing liquid, after having placed a modest amount of ice in both of them. I'm getting ready to bring them over when Tonya stretches out her legs and invites Bobby to sit on her lap once she has sat down.

   "Aw, _Mom,"_ he complains, folding his arms across his chest in protest. "I can sit on a chair by myself!"

   "Yes, I know that, honey, but I don't want you cutting the seats to shreds with your toes," Tonya says, in a long-suffering kind of way. "You better hurry with that Coke, Warren. I don't think I can keep him off the chair for too long."

   "You should try doing what I do with my eldest," Betsy begins slowly, as she leans forward, crosses her legs and folds her hands around her uppermost knee. "When she gets like that, I tell her that if she behaves herself, I'll take her shopping at Bloomingdales." She laughs – which surprises me a little, considering her mood before Tonya arrived – and grins. "Hopefully you'll have better luck than I do. I haven't taken her there once yet."

   "I think Bobby would prefer a Big Mac to Bloomingdales," Tonya says, thoughtfully. "Wouldn't you, sweetie?"

   "Yeah!" Bobby exclaims. "Big Macs are cool!"

   Tonya's eyes light up, obviously sensing her chance to get her son to do as she wants him to. "Well, sit with me here, and we'll see if we can't get one of those for you on the way home, okay?" Almost instantly, Bobby clambers up onto Tonya's lap and makes himself as comfortable as he can. As she wraps her arms around his waist, Tonya kisses her son on the top of his head and says, in a way that suggests she's had _far too much experience with this particular plan, "Works every time." Then, her face takes on a contemplative expression and she continues "Say, Warren… where's your other kid?"_

   "Rebecca?" I reply – suddenly keenly aware that my daughter isn't here, when I had told Tonya she would be. "She'll be here. Did you tell her to meet us here, Betsy?"

   Betsy raises an eyebrow. "Oh, I thought I'd leave that up to you, sweetheart," she says, a slight, teasing smirk crossing her lips. "This _was_ your idea, after all."

   "Very funny," I say flatly, before I cross the short distance between the bar and the sofa, and hand Bobby the small glass of Coke I've poured for him. "There you go, son. Hope you like it without ice." Then, after doing the same for Tonya, I move towards the wall beside the entrance, and push the small red button on the intercom unit that sits just beside the door frame. "Rebecca? Could you come to the rec. room, please? Your mother and I would like to introduce you to someone."

   Rebecca's voice comes over the intercom after a few moments, crackly and tinny thanks to the speaker systems apparently not being at their best on this particular day (I guess I'll have to ask the Professor to get Hank or Forge to have a look at them sometime – after all, both of those guys love tinkering with things, even if they don't need fixing, so they'll have a field day with a simple speaker system). "Hey, Dad," she says, sounding like she's not concentrating on what she's saying. "I'll… be right there." Just before she flicks off the intercom, there is a clatter of some sort (I can't tell exactly what it is, but it sounds… wooden, almost), and then silence.

   I turn back towards Tonya, Betsy and our respective children, and shrug my shoulders. "Well, you heard the lady. She'll be here when she's here, I guess." Crossing the room, I take my seat next to Betsy and fold my hands in my lap, stretching my wings over the back of the chair a little, so that I can get a comfortable sitting posture. 

   "Good. I want to meet this other kid of yours – maybe I'll get to see what's so good about her," Tonya remarks, smiling appreciatively. She leans towards Betsy again, and winks. "Warren tells me that Rebecca was a real handful when you first adopted her."

   Betsy looks at me for a second before answering, silently thanking me for not spilling any more than I had to about Rebecca's more than slightly weird origins. "Yes… yes, she was tough to get used to," she tells Tonya, pressing Tom a little more closely to her chest as memories of that turbulent early time crawl out from beneath the rocks she'd trapped them under. "She didn't like anybody here when she first arrived. She wanted to go back to where she'd lived before, because she thought the people there had loved her more than we did. She actually ran away once, but she came home with us after she got a nasty shock about her 'real family'." She sighs. "Being betrayed like that really hurt her; I can still remember how angry and lost she was after that happened. She took a long time to heal."

   "Yeah," I agree soberly. "Rebecca wasn't the most fun person to be around when that was going on. The rest of the guys here stayed away from her as much as possible because they were…" I pause, trying to find the right way to express what I'm trying to say. "Well, let's just say they didn't want to get their hands bitten off trying to reach out to her." 

   Tonya purses her lips, screwing her eyes into slits at the same time. "Ouch. She was really that bad?"

   "Hey, she _was pretty depressed," I reply. "I think she had a right to feel angry at the people who turned their backs on her, and we just got in the way of that anger, I guess. But we kept trying to get through to her, every day, and eventually we got somewhere closer to where we are today." I pause, thoughtfully. "Actually, it was the son of my friend Scott who really got the ball rolling. He spent entire days with her sometimes – some days he'd be teaching her a new language, other days he'd be giving her insights on how he'd lived his life. I think he even gave her a copy of one of his religion's holy books for her to look at if she wanted to."_

   "Really?" Tonya says as she is sitting forward in her seat, obviously intrigued by the idea. "What religion is he?"

   "Um… Askani," I say, feeling a little silly saying the word.

   "I haven't heard of that one before. Where's it from?" Tonya looks down at Bobby, who it seems is growing a little bit restless on her lap. "Excuse me," she says, embarrassed. "You can sit on the couch now if you like, honey." Bobby squeals in delight and slides effortlessly off his mother's lap, settling into the green leather of the cushions with little trouble before picking up his half-full glass of Coke and draining it in one gulp. Tonya waits until he's settled, then slips one of her hands into his so that she knows where he is, and says "So where's this Askani religion from? I've never even heard of that one before. Is it new?"

   "I, uh, guess you could say that," I say, feeling an unwelcome blush crawl up my face. _Oh boy… this is going to be tough to explain… "Let's just say… it's not going to get much mainstream attention for a few years yet."_

   "I see." Tonya ponders the point for a moment or so, before she folds her hands into one another and curls them into her now-vacant lap. "So why was he so concerned? Is he one of those evangelical types?"

   "Oh, far from it," Betsy says, as she tucks Tom's blankets a little more closely around his body and lets him nuzzle her bosom with his small nose. She knows he's getting hungry, so she's trying to keep him as content as possible before she can find a polite moment to slip out and feed him. "He's Rebecca's half-brother, actually." She sees Tonya's puzzled expression almost before it begins and continues "It's a… a complicated situation."

   "It sounds like it," Tonya replies. "If I didn't know better, I'd think I was watching _Days Of Our Lives, only with mutant powers."_

   "If only," I groan, before putting two fingertips to my temples, as if I'm trying to massage away a migraine. "Then things might be a little simpler around here."

   "But then they'd be too boring," says a voice from the doorway. All of us who are able to look that way do so, and we see Rebecca leaning against the doorframe, her arms folded and her left eyebrow arched prettily over the deep scarlet of her eyes. The braid that she asked Jean to put in her hair hangs to the left side of her face and glitters with a couple of bright beads, giving her face a happy aspect that makes her look even more beautiful. "Hi, Mum – Dad. You said you wanted to see me?" Then, she notices we have company, and walks over to where Tonya and Bobby are sitting, curiosity etched deeply on her face. "Um… hello," she says, uncertainly, holding her hand out for Tonya to shake. "I'm Rebecca Braddock – nice to meet you."

   "Hi, Rebecca," Tonya replies, before standing up from her seat and crossing the room to grasp Rebecca's cautiously-extended hand in a firm but friendly greeting. "I'm Tonya Anderson. I'm a friend of your father's – evidently not a good enough friend that he'd tell you about me before I met you, but a friend nonetheless." She winks at me to let me know she really doesn't mind the situation (although she has every right to). "It's nice to meet you too, honey." Then she gestures at the small shape clinging to her pants leg with both hands, his toe claws clacking softly against the floorboards. "This is my son, Bobby."

   "Hi, Rebecca," Bobby says, suddenly looking very shy again. "Your eyes are very pretty."

   Rebecca's left hand flutters self-consciously towards her face for a moment or two, as at the same time she flushes a shade of pink that makes me believe she could give a certain red-nosed reindeer a run for his money. "Um… thank you," she says, sounding both embarrassed and flattered all at once. "Your eyes aren't bad, either." _What have you got me into, Dad? she sends to me almost indignantly._

   _Don't worry – you'll be fine, sweet-pea. Just be yourself, and you'll have no trouble at all,_ I tell her in response.

   _Well, okay,_ she replies, sounding unconvinced. _But call me 'sweet-pea' again, and I'll kill you. She settles herself down next to Betsy, after arranging some cushions into just the right configuration for her to be comfortable, and then says "So… Tonya… where did you meet my dad?"_

   "Well, the short version goes like this: I met him in the city, last week," Tonya begins, before following Rebecca's lead and resuming her place on her sofa alongside her son, who is a lot more careful in clambering up onto his cushions than he was before, keeping his large toe claws as far away from the expensive leather as possible. "I was his waitress when he stopped for a coffee and a Danish pastry. We got talking, and he told me all about you, your mother and your little brother. He invited me here to meet you all after he'd met my son and my mom, so here I am." She smiles broadly, her brilliantly white teeth shining in the morning light. "Almost didn't make it – that piece of junk excuse for a car I've got parked out front kept threatening to break down on the way here – but we managed to get here without it blowing up in our faces, didn't we, Bobby?"

   "Yeah," Bobby says, grinning. "It was fun. I held onto my seat all the way here."

   "Hmm. Sounds like Mum when she lets me drive Dad's car," Rebecca says thoughtfully. "You have to get her surgically removed from the cushions, she holds on so tight." She winks at Betsy, gently digging at her ribs with one hand.

   "The way you drive, young lady, I think I'm perfectly justified," Betsy replies, returning Rebecca's playful jabs with her free arm, carefully balancing Tom with the other. "You seem to think you have to go as fast as you can, all the time. I'm surprised you haven't had an accident yet."

   "Guess I'm just lucky," Rebecca laughs. "Either that or I can sense which way the other guy is going to turn."

   "Is that your power?" Tonya asks, curiously. "To sense stuff?"

   "Yes," Rebecca replies. "Mum and I are both telepaths." She leans down so that she is closer to Bobby's eye level, and says "Would you like to see what I can do?" _I hope this is the right thing to do,_ she sends to me apprehensively. _Don't blame me if this all goes wrong…_

   "Sure!" Bobby's yellow eyes have become two bright beacons of excitement, and he shifts forward on his cushion, his little hands clasped together. Once he's finished doing that, he watches eagerly as Rebecca holds up her right hand and extends a glowing psychic knife from her knuckles. Its scarlet light illuminates Rebecca's face, casting crimson shadows across her soft, delicate features for a moment or two before she kills the knife and withdraws it back into her hand. Bobby's eyes have gone wide as saucers in the few moments that he saw it, and he says, sounding slightly disappointed, "Wow. I wish _I_ could do cool stuff like that. I'm just stuck with these dumb old claws." His small right hand gestures with disdain at the huge twin razors that are growing from his feet. "They're _boring._"

   "Oh, I wouldn't say _that, exactly," I tell him encouragingly, spreading my wings to their full twelve-foot span, causing Rebecca to dip her head in order to avoid getting a scalpful of feathers. "I mean, you could say that my wings are a boring power, but they aren't. Not every mutant has to be able to blow things up just by looking at them, you know." I pause. "You know, maybe you should talk to a guy here called Mr Logan about those claws."_

   "Why?" Bobby asks, curiosity flashing across his face.

   "He has claws of his own," I explain. "I bet he could teach you how to open cans of soda with them, if you asked him nicely."

   Bobby's expression lightens up another three notches, as if the prospect of being able to open soda cans with his feet is the most brilliant thing he's ever heard. "Cool!" he exclaims, as if that one word can convey all the excitement that I can clearly see in his face.

   "Careful, honey," Tonya says gently. "I don't want you making a mess in Mr Worthington's house."

   "Ah, don't worry about it. Spilt soda's probably the least threatening mess we've ever had in this house," I laugh. "With as many people living here as there are, you can pretty much write that off as an occupational hazard."

   "I guess so." Tonya's tone is thoughtful and considered. "How many people do you have living here, anyway?"

   "About twenty, on a really good day," Betsy replies, rocking Tom gently and kissing him on the forehead to try and silence the wails that are beginning to come from his tiny throat. "I'm sorry," she adds. "Will you excuse Tom and me? We have to find somewhere quiet for our afternoon feed – don't we, precious?" She gets up from the sofa and walks towards the room's double doors, before turning back and saying "I should be back in about twenty minutes, if all goes to plan. Don't be surprised if I take longer than that, though." _See you soon, darling,_ she sends to me, planting a telepathic kiss on my frontal lobes as she walks towards one of the more isolated rooms in the mansion. _That is, unless the little one has any ideas... I can feel her nuzzling Tom's face affectionately at that point, as if physical contact will silence the squeals that I can still hear, even through the thick wood that separates me from my wife._

_   Good luck,_ I send back to her with a little mental laugh. _Sounds like you'll need it._

_   I think I'll need it, too,_ Betsy replies. _You can hold your own without me, though, I'm sure._

_   I'm sure. See you later, sweetheart,_ I tell her before I feel her "hang up" on her end of the conversation, allowing my mind to return to the rec. room and who's sat inside it. "Sorry," I say, almost automatically. "Got a little carried away there."

   "Rebecca told me you were talking to Mrs Worthington," Bobby says, his brows creasing slightly. "How can you do that without opening your mouth? And how can you talk to her when she's out of the room?"

   "Well, Betsy and Rebecca are both telepaths," I explain, knowing that this is probably a difficult issue for a six-year-old boy to grasp, and that I'm probably going to have to go into a lot of detail just to explain the simpler aspects of the whole deal. "That means they can talk to other people in their heads, or hear other people's thoughts just by concentrating. When Betsy talks to me, we can hear each other from almost anywhere in the world, as long as there's nothing affecting Betsy's powers. She and I have a psychic rapport."

   "Rapport," Bobby says, mulling the word over curiously in his mind. "What's that mean?"

   I smile, enjoying my being able to answer the little boy's question (usually, I leave questions about telepathy to Betsy or Rebecca. Go with what you know, after all…). "It means that she and I have a connection to each other, all the time. There's a piece of me in her mind, and a piece of her in mine. It's like… it's like we have an invisible piece of elastic in our heads that joins our brains together."

   "Does it hurt?" Bobby presses. Tonya begins to say something to stop him pressing the issue, but I shake my head.

   "No, it's all right, Tonya. I really don't mind," I say. "It doesn't hurt, Bobby – not even one tiny bit. I'm sure if you asked Betsy, she'd say the same thing." Pausing for a moment or two, I rub my hands together and nod towards the door enthusiastically. "Say, Bobby, would you like to see the rest of the mansion? I'm sure the others would love to meet you."

   Bobby grins, but then hesitates a little. "If Mom says it's okay." He looks up at his mother, who puts one hand to her chin as if she is engaged in deep thought.

   "Well, I'm not really sure," she begins. "This place is so big… you might get lost."

   "Oh, I will _not," Bobby retorts. "You're just kidding with me."_

   "Ooh… _busted_," I chuckle slyly. _Finally… I got my own back._ "We could go for a walk in the grounds if you like. Pretty hard to get lost out there, after all."

    "All right," Tonya says. "Lead the way…"

*

   The four of us make our way out of the rec. room and into a passageway that will lead us to the back lawn, where Rogue and her girlfriend Jenny are sat with a picnic basket lodged between them. Rogue is eating a peanut-butter-and-strawberry-jelly sandwich (or so it seems – judging by the gooey mess that's dripping from between the two slices of bread, it could be pretty much anything) and Jenny is eating a packet of potato chips. Standing next to the picnic basket, balancing precariously on the blanket that the two women are sitting on, is a large bottle of cream soda, which is about half-full, and placed next to it is a large bowl of Skittles, filled almost to overflowing with the multicoloured sugary candies. 

   "Looks like those two have a real little party going on," Tonya remarks. "All they need is paper hats, and they'd be all set."

   Jenny sees our little tour group before Rogue does, and raises a graceful hand to wave at us. Rogue follows suit, and beckons us over. "Hi," she says. "Didn't know y'all had guests, Warren – ain't you gonna introduce me to this charmin' young man and his momma?"

   Once brief introductions have been made, Rogue stands and extends a gloved hand to Tonya and Bobby in turn, with Jenny doing the same almost immediately afterwards. "Nice to meet y'all," Rogue says cheerfully, before linking hands with Jenny. "Any friend of Warren's is a friend of ours – right, Rawhide?"

   "Couldn't have put it better myself," Jenny says, smiling. "It's always nice to meet new people." She gestures at the big bowl of Skittles that is lying unattended on the ground, and looks towards Bobby. "Would you like some Skittles, sweetie? Somebody's got to help us eat them, and I'd rather it wasn't Drake. He has the _worst table manners."_

   "Hey!" Iceman shouts as he brings an ice-slide to the ground about five metres away from us. "I resent that!" Speaking behind his hand, he leans in close to Tonya and says "Don't believe her, kid. She wouldn't know table manners if they poked her in the eye with a fork." Sticking out his hand, he says "Hi, I'm Bobby Drake, the Xavier Institute's answer to Jim Carrey. How _you_ doin'?"

   Needless to say, once we've left Bobby, Rogue and Jenny behind (which took a while thanks to Bobby's insisting on making little action figures out of ice for his younger namesake), it still takes a while for us to get round the garden, as we meet various X-Men on the way (little Bobby's favourite was Bishop – I think that he was intrigued by the way that Bishop was reluctant to do anything but speak in his usual clipped tones while concentrating on cleaning his plasma rifle with an oily rag), but we get there in the end. When we get back to the doors of the mansion, we find Betsy sitting on the steps, cradling Tom gently and singing a lullaby to him at the same time. When she senses us getting closer, Betsy looks up and smiles. "I wondered when you'd be getting back," she says, wryly. "Thought you'd ditch us, did you?"

   "No, we were just –" I begin, feeling a little guilty, but Betsy waves me silent.

   "I know what you were doing, stupid," she says in a breezy tone. "You don't have to apologise." Then she turns her gaze towards Tonya and Bobby. "Did you enjoy your tour?"

   "Yeah!" Bobby exclaims excitedly. "Look what Mr Drake gave me!" He holds out his little Iceman ice figure (which is already starting to look a little wet around the edges, but still has the trademark goofy Drake grin emblazoned on its clear features). "Isn't it neat?"

   "Oh, my," Betsy says, placing a hand on her chest and doing her best to appear fascinated. "Bobby never does things like that for us. He must think pretty highly of you. And who could blame him?"

   "That's right," Rebecca pipes up helpfully. "Bobby never gives me toys like that, even if I ask him really nicely. He just gives me ice cream with marshmallows and Captain Crunch frozen into it." She points to the little figure that is clutched in Bobby's small hand and says "That's much more exciting – and it's better for your waistline, too. That'll never make you fat."

   "Aw, don't be silly!" Bobby exclaims, giving Rebecca a cock-eyed look as if she is the stupidest person in the whole wide world. "I'm not gonna _eat_ this!"

   "You're not? Well then what _are you going to do with it?" Rebecca says, her eyes wide in a very convincing display of interest._

   "I think I'm gonna ask Mr Drake if he can make me some more action figures," Bobby says thoughtfully, before he points over in the direction of Bishop, who is still methodically cleaning, dismantling and reassembling his plasma rifle, totally absorbed in his task and pretty much oblivious to the outside world. "Then I can bash Magneto's head in with the power of Mr Bishop."

   _Looks like Bishop has a fan,_ Rebecca chuckles mentally, her telepathic laughter echoing around my brain.

   _That's a first,_ I reply dryly. _That guy has about as many groupies as Bill Gates… maybe less. I think it's that sparkling attitude that does it…_

   "Well, I'm sure if you ask Mr Drake nicely, he'll make you a whole boxful of ice-people," I say aloud, addressing Bobby again. "He's very accommodating like that." 

*

   At the end of the day (after Logan has reluctantly taught Bobby how to open cans of soda with his claws, as I'd promised he would), Tonya insists that Betsy and I come out to her car so that she can say goodbye to us properly. As we are walking out of the front door, Tonya watches Rebecca peel off from our little group in order to find Sam. She waits until Rebecca is out of earshot, and then says "I can see why you're both so proud of her. I would be, too."

   "Thank… thank you," Betsy says, a little taken aback. Tonya smiles at that, her blue eyes full of laughter.

   "My pleasure," she replies. "Bobby and I had a great day today – didn't we, Bobby?"

   "Yeah! I had the best time," Bobby exclaims, his eyes flashing brightly with a still-unquenched enthusiasm. "Mr Logan was really funny."

   "I'm sure if you said that to him face to face, he'd tell you not to tell a soul, on pain of death," Betsy chuckles, laughing. "Logan doesn't like anybody to know he's got a sense of humour."

   We walk over to Tonya's battered old car and watch as Tonya opens the rear door and lets Bobby climb up onto his seat (the cushions are ripped in several places, the innards of the seats bulging out like soft entrails, so I'm glad that she insisted he sit on her lap in the rec. room. I don't think the Professor would have forgiven me if he'd torn them). Before she opens her own door, she turns back towards me and says "Thank you so much for this, Warren. You made Bobby's day." She hugs me to her gently, kissing me on the cheek. "And mine, too." Then, she turns towards Betsy and takes a deep breath. "Thank you for accepting me into your home without even knowing who I was, Betsy," she says. "I know it must have been difficult for you, but –"

   "Oh, nonsense," Betsy says dismissively. "I'll admit I had some misgivings at first, but I think you and your son have proved them all completely wrong. It's been a pleasure having you here." She steps forward and, after handing Tom to me, gives Tonya a warm embrace. "I hope you can visit us again."

   "Thanks – that means a lot," Tonya replies, an almost visible weight coming off her shoulders. Then she opens the door to her car and continues "Well, we'd better get going. I'll call you guys – maybe we can go out for lunch sometime?"

   "I'd like that," I say. "We both would."

   "Cool," Tonya smiles. "I'll see you guys later, then." With that, she gets into her car and manages, after a few false starts, to get the engine running and turn the car around so that she can make her way back up the driveway.

   When she has gone, I ask Betsy whether or not she's forgiven me yet for springing this whole day on her without warning. She looks at me with an eyebrow raised, and says simply "The jury's still out on that one, Mr Worthington, but I don't think you're in any danger." She pauses, and smiles an enigmatic smile. "Just be on your best behaviour for… oh, say, the next month and half, and I might let you off with a caution…"


End file.
